a very irregularly-updated blog on random topics

Test tracks: Stereo – Imaging

Comments: Okay, so this ISN’T a great recording, but it has some problems that, if you can’t hear them, your system isn’t performing up-to-snuff. One of the things to listen for here is the image location of the high-hat. Listen to the beginning of the tune, close your eyes, and point to the high-hat, but do this before the snare drum comes in. When the snare starts, keep paying attention to the high hat. If your imaging is good, you’ll notice that the high hat pulls towards the centre of your stereo image every time the snare is hit. This is an artifact of the original recording, the result of a technique called “gating” the drums. Normally, the snare drum microphone is “off” and automatically turns “on” when the snare is hit. The problem here is that, when it does turn on, other things (like the high hat) bleed into it, and are pulled to the position of the snare drum microphone.